Maybe the expectations came from the name. Maybe it was the
knowledge that the owner is all of 21 years old. Maybe it was the
word that it was going to be a bistro. Whatever it was, the reality
of Missy French is quite a lot fancier than what you may have had
in mind. This is Josephine Perry's restaurant, but if you thought
she might be opening a place of her own to strike out and do
something dramatically different from the sort of thing her
restaurateur-chef father, a reasonably well-known ponytailed bloke
called Neil, might have done, think again. What we have instead is
a polished creation that's very much a continuation of the family
business. Grant Cheyne did the interiors, and they're just as
carefully lit as Spice Temple (though much
brighter). Rockpool Bar &
Grill's Richard Healy wrote the tight, impressive half-French,
half-Australian wine list. And chef Chris Benedet comes from Rockpool.
Perry fille says the menu is a work in progress in the sense that
they're trying to keep prices down to keep things feeling
neighbourhoody. They've managed it with the $29 puffy, golden
Pithiviers (pictured), a puff-pastry pork pie sitting on petits
pois and veal jus like a fabulous luxed-up floater. The steaks seem
priced a bit more CBD-banker than Potts Point gamine, the flat-iron
(with Café de Paris butter) at $45, the sirloin (with Bordelaise)
at $53. But the room is pretty and comfortable (barring the tables
right by the door, which cop an icy blast every time it opens),
Benedet's plates are tight, attractively composed and
full-flavoured, the waiters welcoming, and Missy seems set to make
friends fast.